Greek Bachelors: Tempted To A Fling. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ Making me feel awkward. When you said I was being too inquisitive about your private life.’

      He laughed very softly then, his strong implacable features suddenly losing some of their austerity. His eyes, however, were disturbingly reflective as they rested on her face.

      ‘And I thought you were doing it just to prompt some reaction from me,’ he murmured silkily, with no apology for silencing her earlier.

      ‘Prompt some reaction from you?’ Kayla’s throat contracted with heightening sexual tension. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

      ‘Because I’m probably one of the only men you’ve met who isn’t instantly falling over himself to respond to your temptingly sexy signals.’

      ‘I’m not giving off any signals!’ Kayla breathed, mortified. ‘And I’m certainly not trying to get your attention.’

      ‘Aren’t you?’ Those shrewd eyes tugged over her flushed, indignant features, regarding, assessing and stripping her of her deepest and hottest secrets. ‘You wouldn’t have come out here looking like this...’ an all-encompassing glance took in breasts thrust tantalisingly upwards by the shaping of the cups and skimpy briefs barely skimming her abdomen ‘...if you weren’t.’

      Shamefully, she wished she had bothered to retrieve her cover-up before flaunting herself in front of him like this. Because that was what she had been doing, she admitted silently. Flaunting herself.

      She wanted to say something to redeem herself. Or simply to run away. Anything but stay there and face him like this.

      She wished she had run when he suddenly reached up and cupped her cheek, his broad thumb playing across the softness of her pouting lips.

      ‘If I made love to you, Kayla,’ he said huskily, ‘it would be a fleeting moment’s pleasure. That’s all. No commitment. No strings. And I don’t think you came here to let some man with his own issues to sort out use you like that. A girl like you needs something more than anything I could offer you. Something more meaningful. Not a brief fling to try and forget the man who cheated on you with a few hours of what I can’t deny would be sensational pleasure.’

      He was deadly serious, but even his words were exciting her. Or was it his thumb, tracing the curve of her plump lower lip, forcing her to close her eyes against the reckless desire to taste him? To inhale his musky animal scent mingling with the smell of grease and metal and everything that made this man exciting to her?

      ‘Who said I want you to make love to me?’ she murmured in pointless protest, her eyes inky beneath lashes still half-lowered against his gaze.

      ‘You’re inviting it with every denial you utter,’ he breathed hoarsely, his voice overlaid with desire. ‘And you’re not so naïve as not to realise that you’re making me as hard as a rock.’

      ‘You’re wrong!’ she argued breathlessly, and in the only way she knew of saving face she pulled away from him, almost tripping over her own feet in her flip-flops as she virtually ran back to the house.

      Upstairs, away from Philomena’s shrewd eyes, she went into the shower-room and peeled off the bikini that seemed to be sticking to her.

      Why on earth was she so attracted to him? she berated herself under the cool jets of the shower, trying to lather away the sensual heat from her body and that elusive scent of him that still clung to her skin where he had briefly touched her.

      He had admitted himself that he was a man with issues.

      Woman issues! Which was why he had shut her up, coming back from the beach today.

      Well, what did she care? His business was his business. As far as she was concerned, he was simply a man who had helped her out of a difficult situation. Nothing more. It was just that she couldn’t seem to stop making a fool of herself when she was with him, let alone concentrate on anything but him when she wasn’t!

      She tried to think about the past couple of months. Her ex. What had driven her here. Tried to stir up some other emotions to blot out the crazy, reckless feelings she was experiencing for Leon.

      But, try though she did, feeling bitter suddenly seemed like a wasted emotion—because Craig and what he had done didn’t seem to matter so much any more.

CHAPTER SIX

      KAYLA DIDN’T SEE Leon the next day, or the day after that, and when he did come down to the cottage again, looking stupendous in a white T-shirt and light, hip-hugging trousers, it was only to deliver logs to Philomena.

      ‘So you’re still roadworthy, then?’ Kayla remarked, almost coyly, when he came into the sitting room after offloading and stacking the logs beside the huge indoor oven, still embarrassingly mindful of their conversation the last time they had met.

      ‘Just about,’ Leonidas reassured her with a self-effacing grimace. ‘And I see that you’re just about as cheeky as ever.’

      ‘No, I’m not,’ Kayla asserted, thrilled nevertheless by the sensual gleam in those midnight-black eyes that seemed to promise some delightful retribution if she didn’t stop. Wildly she wondered if he had been right the other day, and she had been taunting him solely for his attention. Because despite all he had said about no attachments and no strings, she wanted that attention now—like crazy! ‘We were wondering why we hadn’t seen you,’ she said, as nonchalantly as she could.

      ‘We?’ He picked up on her deliberate choice of pronoun—and on the little tremor she couldn’t keep out of her voice. Obviously, from the way his mouth compressed in mild amusement. ‘Are you saying you missed me?’

      ‘No.’ Kayla was glad that Philomena had left the room—though not before she’d noticed how the woman had laid a grateful hand on Leon’s arm for the work he had just done. The unspoken affection the two of them shared touched Kayla immensely.

      Yet she had missed him, she thought, and Leon knew it too—evidently from the way he laughed in response.

      ‘In that case you won’t object to spending the day with me,’ he said, deliberately misinterpreting what she had said. ‘Philomena told me you were asking one of her neighbours about the little island the other day—about if you could book a trip across there.’

      He meant that dark mass of land she could see jutting out of the sea from practically every aspect of this hillside.

      ‘She also mentioned that you spend far too much time worrying that you aren’t doing enough to help her around the place. She wants you to enjoy your holiday—so do I—and as there are no organised trips to that island I’ll be happy to take you over there myself.’

      Even as he was suggesting it Leonidas told himself that he was being unwise. He had assured Kayla—as well as himself—that he wasn’t prepared to have any sort of relationship with her, but try as he might he just couldn’t keep away. Yet if he spent time with her, he warned himself, he would be deceiving her with every word he uttered. And if he didn’t...?

      If he didn’t then he’d go mad thinking about her, he admitted silently, feeling the thrust of his scorching libido flaring into life just from sparring with her, not to mention from the scent of her, which was acting on his senses as powerfully as if he’d just opened the door on some willing wanton’s boudoir.

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